Hioki Taps Mann to Advance in Sengoku GP

TOKYO -- Hatsu Hioki's
“Golden Week” holiday gift to Japanese fans was a first-round
submission of Ronnie Mann
on Saturday in the main event of Sengoku's Eighth Battle at Yoyogi
National No. 2 Gymnasium.

After braving several punches, Hioki took the Briton down with a
trip. Mann ate short knees to the side of his head before
scrambling to all fours for a single, but Hioki sprawled and used a
brabo choke setup to push his way into mount. Hioki then dropped
several punches while creeping forward to lock up a triangle.

Mann scrambled but was caught. He reached around Hioki’s back to
prevent having his arm pulled across for the finish, but the
maneuver opened him up to Hioki’s punches. The choke had Mann
reddening, too, and soon enough, he tapped at the 3:09 mark.

“I started off well, standing up,” said a disappointed Mann, “but I
fell into his game. Fell into his trap. The punches were only small
punches, but it was the triangle that was slowly coming on, so in
the end, I tapped.”

Hioki said he was able to fight his own style and pace.

“Mann was physically very strong, and I think his defense was good,
but I set out to trap him,” Hioki said. “I think everything went
according to plan.”

Michihiro
Omigawa also advanced in the featherweight tournament,
punishing Nam Phan for a
first-round TKO. Omigawa set the pace by getting Phan to the ground
and keeping him there with a guillotine. However, Omigawa wasn't
interested in finishing the submission, as he used the headlock
grip to deliver knees to Phan's face. Omigawa also piled on
punishment from side and on the feet, bullying Phan in the corner
before taking him down for an unrelenting barrage of punches from
guard. Perhaps a tad early, referee Yoshinori Umeki intervened at
4:52.

“I think Phan has heart and is the kind of fighter who comes on
strong once he gets his second wind, so I threw more punches when I
had the chance,” said Omigawa of the end of the round.

“When you get hit, you get winded and stuff, but I felt like my
pain tolerance was pretty good, and that I could have continued to
the next round,” said Phan of the stoppage. “His clinch was very
strong, and I thought I could utilize my jiu-jitsu on him, but he’s
got really good submission defense, and his ground-and-pound was
better than I’d expected.”

Lightweights Kazunori
Yokota and Leonardo
Santos fought to a tense split decision. Despite locking up
mount and back mount on Yokota, Santos struggled to finish or keep
him down. Scrambling and reversing, Yokota often found himself back
in Santos' guard, where he dropped punches and the occasional
stomp. The offense seemed to have trumped Santos' grappling
advantages in two of the judges' minds, as Tenshin Matsumoto and
Masanori Ohashi scored the fight 30-29 and 30-28 for Yokota, while
Gen Isono scored it 29-28 for Santos.

Daniel Herbertson/Sherdog.com

Stanislav Nedkov took
out veteran Travis Wiuff.

Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro's stand-up training with Andre “Dida”
Amade and Wanderlei
Silva paid dividends, as the jiu-jitsu world champion knocked
out Keiichiro
Yamamiya in the third period. Confident that he'd won the first
two rounds with grappling control and sub attempts, Xande came out
swinging in the third. He caught Yamamiya with a counter right
hook, and referee Umeki lunged in for the save at 0:51 in the
third.

Chan
Sung Jung couldn’t exact revenge for teammate Jong Man Kim
in his featherweight tournament bout against Masanori
Kanehara. Game to bang on the feet, Kanehara not only proved to
have a good chin but also that he could hold his own with the heavy
hitting Jung. Kanehara also took Jung down with relative ease early
on, but Jung played an active bottom, punching, up-kicking and
attempting submissions. A particularly vicious series of up-kicks
followed by knees to the face by Jung in the third turned the
tables in his favor, but all three judges ultimately gave the nod
to Kanehara (30-29, 30-29, 29-28).

Featherweight King of Pancrase Marlon
Sandro blitzed Canada's Nick Denis in
their featherweight tournament bout, putting him down with a big
right uppercut and left hook. Sandro followed up with hard right
hands, bouncing Denis' head on the canvas until his legs stiffened.
Referee Kenichi
Serizawa jumped in for the save at a mere 0:19.

Makoto
Takimoto meticulously worked his way out of an early Michael
Costa guillotine to take side mount, where he hunted for an
armbar. Costa stacked and escaped, targeting one of Takimoto's
legs, but the Olympic judo gold medalist beat the Brazilian to the
submission with an inverted heel hook at 3:31.

Stanislav
Nedkov got off to a rocky start against Travis
Wiuff, racking up two red cards for kneeing the American below
the belt three times. However, Nedkov resurged at the opening of
the third round, sending Wiuff to the mat with a big right
counterpunch. Dizzied and tangled in the ropes, Wiuff ate several
punches before referee Tomoki Matsumiya stopped the fight at 0:42
of the third.

The ever-exciting Maximo
Blanco was on his way to a handy KO victory over Akihiko
Mori, scoring big punches, flying knees and spinning back
kicks. His recklessness got the better of him, though. After
dropping Mori with a big right hand, he followed up with a soccer
kick to the face at the 4:20 mark in the first. Mori was soon
declared the winner by disqualification.